Re: Articles, determiners, quantifiers, whatever...

En réponse à Remi Villatel :


>Hence my question: Do I have a very twisted mind?  ;-)  Well, in fact: Are
>there some conlangs with a very complex system of acticles that goes beyond
>"a, the, some"?
Well, your view of a "twisted" system is just a very agglutinative one. I 
don't find that twisted at all personally :) . Make a twisted system 
without having twenty different affixes on your articles, and I'll be more 
with you :)) .

The Maggel article is such a twisted thing. In form, it's simply "a(n)" (it 
merges with some prepositions). "an" is used before nouns beginning with a 
vowel, or with nouns that complete other nouns (whatever the first sound of 
the noun). Whether the article is used or not depends more on what 
completes the noun rather than on an added meaning of definiteness or such. 
The main rules are as follows:
- when the noun is alone, the article has a definiteness meaning: no 
article indicates an indefinite noun, an article indicates a definite one. 
It's the only case when the article has this meaning.
- the article is *mandatory* when the noun has an adjective or a relative 
subclause added to it. It doesn't add any meaning though: the noun may be 
indefinite. It is also mandatory to indicate the possessor in a possessive 
construction (in which case it always takes the form "an")
- the article is *forbidden* when the noun is in construct state (i.e. in a 
possessee), whether the possessor is a full noun or a possessive prefix.
- most prepositions don't allow the article to be used with them (they 
really take the slot of the article). A few can take the article, and 
change meaning when the article is used (I have no example of that yet 
though :( ).
- the rules for the use of the article with numerals are too complex to 
explain here. But the presence or absence of the article has a strong 
influence on the meaning of the numeral.

A peculiarity of the article is that although it's written as a separate 
word, it's really a prefix: nothing can come between the article and the 
noun it completes. Since adjectives may come in front of nouns, it means 
the order adjective+article+noun is common :) . Prepositions behave the 
same (so you can also get the order adjective+preposition+noun). There is a 
conflict when the article and a preposition are used together. If the 
preposition and the article don't merge together (a common occurence), the 
order they take is rather irregular. There are some rules seemingly having 
to do with pronunciation, or sometimes with the presence or absence of an 
adjective in front of the noun, or a numeral, but they are riddled with 
exceptions. In any case, both the preposition+article and the 
article+preposition orders occur.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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